Houston County, Minnesota - Chapter with an unread heading (no. 25 of those read), 1882

Measures Legislation Board Of Regents

When Minnesota was prepared by her population for application to Congress for admission as a State, Congress, in an act authorizing her to form a State government, makes the following provision for schools:

(1) uThat sections numbered sixteen and thirty-six in every township of public land in said State, and where either of said sections, or any part thereof, has been sold or otherwise dis- ]>osed of, other lands equivalent thereto, and as contiguous as may be, shall be granted to said State for the use of schools.

(2) "That seventy-two sections of land shall be set apart and reserved for the use and support of a State University to be selected by the Governor of said State, subject to the approval of the commissioner at the general land office, and be appropriated and applied in such manner as the legislature of said State may prescribe for the purpose aforesaid, but for no other purpose." [Passed February 26, 1857.]

But that there might be no misapprehension that the American Government not only had the inclination to aid in the proper education of the citizens, but that in cases requiring direct control, the government would not hesitate to exercise its authority, in matters of education as well as in any and all other questions affecting its sovereignty. To this end, on the second of July, 1862, Congress passed the "act donating public lands to the several States and Territories which may provide colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts."

"Be it enacted, &c, that there be granted to the several States for the purposes hereinafter mentioned, an amount of public land to be appropriated to each State (except States in rebellion), a quantity equal to thirty thousand acres for each senator and representative in Congress to which the States are respectively entitled - by the apportionment under the census of 1860."

"That all moneys derived from the sale of these lands directly or indirectly shall be invested in stocks yielding not less than five per cent.upon the par value of such stocks. That the money so invested shall constitute a perpetual fund, the capital of which shall remain forever undiminished, and the interest thereof shall be inviolably appropriated by each State which may claim the benefit of the act to the endowment, support, and maintenance of at least one college, where the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in such manner as the legislatures of the States may respectively prescribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life.

Section five, second clause of said act, provides "That no portion of said fund, nor the interest thereon, shall be applied, directly or indirectly, under any pretense whatever, to the purchase, erection, preservation, or repairs of any building or buildings."

Section five, third clause, 'That any State which may take and claim the benefit of the provisions of this act shall provide within five years, at least no less than one College, as described in the fourth section of this act, or the grant to such State shall cease; and the said State shall be bound to pay the United States the amount received of any lands previously sold."

Section five, fourth clause, "An annual report shall be made regarding the progress of each college, recording any improvements and experiments made, with their costs and results, and such other matters, including State, industrial, and economical statistics, as may be supposed useful; one copy of which shall be transmitted by mail free, by each, to all the other colleges which may be endowed under the provisions of this act, and also one copy to the Secretary of the Interior."

Under this act Minnesota is entitled to select 150,000 acres to aid in teaching the branches in the act named in the State University, making

Aid Of Congress In 1862

All these lands have not been selected. Under the agricultural college grant, only 94,439 acres have been selected, and only 72,708 acres under the two University grants, leaving only 167,147 acres realized for university purposes, out of the 208,360, a possible loss of 41,203 acres.

The permanent school fund derived from the national domain by the state of Minnesota, at a reasonable estimate of the value of the lands secured out of those granted to her, cannot vary far from the results below, considering the prices already obtained: are, however, not a tithe of the means required from the State itself for the free education of the children of the State. We shall see further on what the State has already done in her free school system.

Minnesota, a State first distinguished by an extra grant of Government land, has something to unite it to great national interest Its position in the sisterhood of States gives it a prominence that none other can occupy. A State lying on both sides of the great Father of waters, in a continental valley midway between two vast oceans encircling the Western Hemisphere, with a soil of superior fertility, a climate unequalled for health, and bright with skies the most inspiring, such a State, it may be said, must ever hold a prominent position in the Great American Union.

In the acts of the early settlements on the Atlantic coast, in the Colonial Government and the National Congress* we have the evidence of a determined intention 'that schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged" by the people who have the destinies of the Western Hemisphere in their hands. That the external organism of the system capable of accomplishing this heavy task, and of carrying forward this responsible duty rests with the people themselves, and is as extensive as the government they have established for the protection of their rights and the growth of their physical industries, and the free development of their intellectual powers. The people, organized as a Nation, in assuming this duty, have in advance, proclaimed to the world, that "Religion, Morality, and Knowledge" are alike essential "to good government." And in organizing a government free from sectarian control or alliance, America made an advance hitherto unknown, both in its temporal and spiritual power; for hitherto the work of the one had hindered the others, and the labors and unities of the two were inconsistent with the proper functions of either. The triumph, therefore, of either, for the control of both, was certain rum, while separation of each, the one from the other, was the true life of both. Such a victory, therefore, was never before known on earth, as the entire separation, and yet, the friendly rivalry of Church and State, first inaugurated in the free States of America. This idea was crystalized and at once stamped on the fore-front of the Nation's life in the aphorism, "Religion, morality, and knowledge are alike essential to good government. " And the deduction from this national aphorism, necessarily follows: "That schools and the means of education, should forever be encouraged." We assume, then, without further illustration drawn from the acts of the Nation, that the means of education have not and will not be withheld. We have seen two great acquisitions, the Northwest Territory, and the Louisiana Purchase, parceled out in greater and greater profusion for educational uses, till the climax is reached in the Mississippi Valley, the future great center of national power. At the head of this valley sits as regnant queen, the state of Minnesota, endowed with the means of education unsurpassed by any of her compeers in the sisterhood of States. Let us now inquire, as pertinent to this discussion,

The answer is in part made up from her constitution, and the laws enacted in pursuance thereof: First, then, article VUL1. of her constitution, reads thus:

State Education

Section 1. The stability of a republican form of government depending mainly upon Uie intelligence of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislature to establish a general and uniform system of public schools.

Section 2. The proceeds of such lands as are, or hereafter may be granted by the United States for the use of schools in each township in this State, shall remain a perpetual school fund to the State. * * * * The principal of all funds arising from sales or other disposition of lands or other property, granted or entrusted to this State, shall forever be preserved inviolate aud undiminished; and the income arising from the lease or sale of said school land shall be distributed to the different townships throughout the State, in proportion to the number of scholars in each township between the ages of five and twenty-one years; and shall be faithfully applied to the specific object of the original grant or appropriation."

Section 3. The Legislature shall make such provision by taxation or otherwise, as, with the income arising from the school fund, will secure a thorough and efficient system of public schools in each township in the State.

But in no case shall the moneys derived as aforesaid, or any portion thereof, or any public moneys or property, be appropriated or used for the support of schools wherein the distinctive doctrines, creeds, or tenets of any particular Christian or other religious sect are promulgated or taught."

The Univebsity

"Section 4. The location of the University of Minnesota, as established by existing laws, [Sept. 1851] is hereby confirmed and said institution is hereby declared to be the University of Minnesota. All the rights, immunities, franchises, and endowments heretofore granted or conferred, are hereby perpetuated unto the said University; and all lands which may be granted hereafter by Congress, or other donations for said University purposes, shall rest in the institution referred to in this section.

The State Constitution is in full harmony with the National Government in the distinctive outlines laid down in the extracts above made. And the Territorial and State Governments, within these limits, have consecutively appropriated by legislation, sufficient to carry forward the State School System In the Territorial act, establishing the University, the people of the State announced in advance of the establishment of a State Government, "that the proceeds of the land that may hereafter be granted by the United States to the Territory for the support of the University, shall be and remain a perpetual fund to be called "The University Fund," uthe interest of which shall be appropriated to the support of a University, and no sectarian instruction shall be* allowed in such, University!" This organization of the Universiry was confirmed by the State Constitution, and the congressional land grants severally passed to that corporation, and the use of the funds arising therefrom were subjected to the restrictions named. So that both the common school and University were dedicated to State School purposes, and expressly excluded from sectarian control or sectarian instruction.

In this respect the State organization corresponds with the demands of the general Government; and has organized the school system reaching from the common school to the University, so that it may be said, the State student may, if he chooses, in the State of Minnesota, pass from grade to grade, through common school, high school, and State University free of charge for tuition. Without referring specially to the progressive legislative enactments, the united system may be referred to as made up of units of different orders, and suooessively in its ascending grades, governed by separate boards, rising in the scale of importance, from the local trustee, directors, and treasurer, in the common school, to the higher board of education, of six members in the independent school district, and more or less than that number in districts and large cities under special charter, until we reach the climax in the dignified Board of Regents; a board created by law and known as the Regents of the State University. This honorable body consists of seven men nominated by the Governor and confirmed by the senate of the State legislature, each holding his office for three years; and besides these there are three ex-officio members consisting of the President of the State University, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, and the Governor of the State. This body of ten men are in reality the legal head of the State University, and indirectly the effective head of the State School System of Minnesota, and are themselves subject only to the control of the State Legislature. These various officers, throughout this series, are severally trustees of legal duties which cannot be delegated. They fall under the legal maxim " that a trustee cannot make a trustee." These are the legal bodies to whom the several series of employes and servitors owe obedience. These various trustees determine the oourse of study and the rules of transfer from grade to grade until the last grade is reached at the head of the State system, or the scholar has perhaps completed a post-graduate oourse in a polytechnic school, inaugurated by the State for greater perfection, it may be in chemistry, agriculture, the mechanic arts, or other specialty, required by the State or national government.

This system, let it be understood, differs from all private, practical, denominational, or sectarian schools. The State organism and all the sectarian elements of the church are in this department of labor entirely distinct. The State protects and encourages, but does not control either the schools or the faith of the church. The church supports and approves, but does not yield its tenets or its creed to the curriculum of the schools of the State. The State and the Church are in this respect, entirely distinct and different organizations. State Education, however, and the education of the adherents of the church are in harmony throughout a great portion of the State curriculum. Indeed there seems to be no reason why the greater portion of denominational teaching so far as the same is in harmony with the schools of the State, should not be relegated to the State, that the church throughout all its sectarian element might be the better able to direct its energies and economize its benevolence in the cultivation of its own fields of chosen labor. But, however this may be, and wherever these two organizations choose to divide their labors, they are still harmonious even in their rivalry.

The organism as a State system has, in Minnesota, so matured that through all the grades to the. University, the steps are defined and the gradients passed without any conflict of authority. The only check to the regular order of ascending grades was first met in the State University. These schools, in older countries, had at one time, an independent position, and in their origin had their own scholars cf all grades, from the preparatory department to the Senior Class in the finished course; but in our State system, when the common schools became graded, and the High School had grown up as a part of the organism of a completed system, the University naturally took its place at the head of the State system, having the same relation to the High School as the High School has to the Common School. There was no longer any reason why the same rule should not apply in the transfer from the High School to the University, that applied in the transfer from the Common School to the High School, and to this conclusion the people of the State have already fully arrived. The rules of the board of Regents of the State University now allow students, with the Principal's certificate of qualification, to enter the Freshman class, on examination in sub -Freshman studies only. But even this is not satisfactory to the friends of the State School system. They demand, for High School graduates, an entrance into the University, when the grade below is passed, on the examination of the school below for graduation therein. If, on the one hand, the High Schools of the State, under the law for the encouragement of higher education, are required to prepare students so that they shall be qualified to enter some one of the classes of the University, on the other hand the University should be required to admit the students thus qualified without further examination. The rule should work in either direction. The rights of students under the law are as sacred, and should be as inalienable, as the rights of teachers or faculties in State institutions. The day of unlimited, irresponsible discretion, a relic of absolute autocracy, a despotic power, has no place in systems of free schools under constitutional and statutary limitations,and these presidents and faculties who continue to exercise this power in the -absence of right, should be reminded by Boards of Regents at the head of American State systems, that their resignation would be acceptable. They belong to an antiquated system, outgrown by the age in which we live.

The spirit of the people of our State was fully intimated in the legislature of 1881, in the House Bill, introduced as an amendment to the law of 1878-79, for the encouragement of higher education, but finally laid aside for the law then in force, slightly amended, and quite in harmony with the House Bill. Sections two and five alluded to, read as follows:

"Any public, graded or high school in any city or incorporrted village or township organized into a district under the so-called township system, which shall have regular classes and courses of study, articulating with some course of study, optional or required, in the State University, and shall raise annually for the expense of said school doable the amount of State aid allowed by this act, and shall admit students of either sex into the higher classes thereof from any part of the State, without charge for tuition, shall receive State aid as specified in section four of this act Provided, that non-resident pupils shall in all cases be qualified to enter the highest department of said school at the entrance examination for resident pupils. v

"The High School Board shall have power, and^it is hereby made their duty to provide uniform questions to test the qualifications of the scholars of said graded or high schools for entrance and graduation, and especially conduct the examinations of scholars in said schools, when desired and notified, and award diplomas to graduates, who shall, upon examination, be found to have completed any course of study, either optional or required, entitling the holder to enter any class in the University of Minnesota named therein, any time within one year from the date thereof, with out further examination; said diploma to be executed by the several members of the High School Board."

The Related System

We have now seen the position of the University in our system of Public Schools. In its position only at the head of the series it differs from the grades below. The rights of the scholar follow him throughout the series. When he has completed and received the certificate or diploma in the prescribed course in the High School, articulating with any course, optional or required, in the University, he has the same right, unconditioned, to pass to the higher class in that course* as he had to pass on examination, from one class to the other in any of the grades below. So it follows, that the University faculty or teacher who assumes the right to reject, condition, or re-examine such student, would exercise an abuse of power, unwarranted in law, arbitrary in spirit, and not republican in character. This rule id better and better understood in all State Universities, as free State educational organisms are more orystalized into forms, analogous to our State and national governments. The arbitrary will of the intermediate, or head master, no longer prevails. His will must yield to more certain legal rights, as the learner passes on, under prescribed rules, from infancy to manhood through all the grades of school life. And no legislation framed on any other theory of educational promotion in republican States can stand against this American consciousness of equality existing between all the members of the body politic. In this consciousness is embraced the inalienable rights of the child or the youth to an education free in all our public schools. In Minnesota it is guaranteed in the constitution that the legislature shall make such provisions, by taxation or otherwise, as with the income arising from the school fund, will secure a thorough and efficient system of public schools in each township in the State." Who shall say that the people have no right to secure such thorough and efficient system^ even should that "thorough and efficient system" extend to direct taxation for a course extending to graduation from a University ? Should such a course exceed the constitutional limitation of a thorough and efficient system of pubiic schools?

Interpretation Of The Constitution

The people, through the medium of the lawmaking power, have given on three several occasions, in 1878, 1879 and 1881, an intimation of the scope and measuring of our State constitution on educational extension to higher education than the common school. In the first section of the act of 1881, the legislature created a High School Board, consisting of the Governor of the State, Superintendent of Public Instruction, and the President of the University of Minnesota, who are charged with certain duties and granted certain powers contained in the act. And this High School Board are required to grant State aid to the amount of $400 during the school year to any public graded school, in any city or incorporated village, or township organized into a district which shall give preparatory instruction, extending to and articulating with the University course in some one of its classes, and shall admit sudentsof either sex, from any part of the State, without charge for tuition. Provided only that non-resident pupils shall be qualified to enter some one of the organized classes of such graded or high school. To carry out this act, giving State aid directly out of the State treasury to a course of education reaching upward to the common school through the high school to the University, the legislature appropriated the entire sum of $20,000. In this manner we have the interpretation of the people of Minnesota as to the meaning of "a thorough and efficient system of public schools, operative alike in each township in the State/1 And this interpretation of onr legislature is in harmony with the several acts of Congress, and particularly the act of July the second, 1862, granting lands to the several States of the Union, known as the Agricultural College Grant. The States receiving said lands are required, in their colleges or universities, to "teach such branches of learning as are related to Agriculture and the Mechanic arts, without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, in such manner as the Legislatures of the States may respectively prescribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life."

And the Legislature of Minnesota has already established in its University, optional or required courses of study fully meeting the limitations in the congressional act of 1862. In its elementary department, it has three courses, known as classical, scientific, and modern. In the College of Science, Literature, and the Arts, the courses of study are an extension of those of the elementary departments, and lead directly to the degrees of Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science, and Bachelor of Literature. In the College of Mechanic Arts the several courses of studies are principally limited to Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Architecture. In the College of Agriculture are : ( 1 ) The regular University course, leading to the degree of Bachelor of Agriculture. (2) The Elementary course, in part coinciding with the Scientific course of the Elementary Department. (3) A Farmer's Lecture course. (4) Three special courses for the year 1880-81. Law and Medicine have not yet been opened in the State University for want of means to carry forward these departments, now so much needed.

Our State constitution has therefore been practically interpreted by the people, by a test that cannot be misconstrued. They have fortified their opinion by the payment of the necessary tax to insure the success of a thorough and efficient system of public schools throughout the State. This proof of the people's interest in these schools appears in the amounts paid for expenses and instruction. From the school fund the State of Minnesota received, in 1879, the full sum of $232,187.43. The State paid out, that same year the sum of $394,737.71. The difference is $162,-

550.28, which was paid out by the State more than was derived from the government endowment fund. And it is not at all likely that the endowment fund, generous as it is, will ever produce an amount equal to the cost of instruction. The ratio of the increase of scholars, it is believed, will always be in advance of the endowment fund. The cost of instruction cannot fall much below an average, for all grades of scholars, of eight dollars per annum to each pupil. Our present 180,000 scholars enrolled would, at this rate, require $1,440,000, and in ten years, and long before the sale of the school lands of the State shall have been made, this 180,000 will have increased a hundred per cent., amounting to 360,000 scholars. These, at $8.00 per scholar for tuition, would equal $2,880,000 per annum, while the interest from the school fund in the same time cannot exceed $2,000,000, even should the land average the price of $6.00 per acre, and the interest realized be always equal to 6 per cent.

Some Of The Results

In these infant steps taken by our State, we can discern the tendency of our organism towards a completed State system, as an element of a still wider union embracing the nation. To know what is yet to be done in this direction we must know what has already been done. We have, in the twenty years of our State history, built 3,693 school houses, varying in cost from $400 to $90,- 000; total value of all, $3,156,210; three Normal Schoool buildings atacostof (1872) $215,231.52; a State University at an expenditure for buildings alone of $70,000, and an allowance by a late act of the Legislature of an additional $100,000, in three yearly appropriations, for additional buildings to be erected, in all $170,000, allowed by the State for the University. Add these to the cost of common school structures, and we have already expended in school buildings over $4,800,- 000 for the simple purpose of housing the infant organism, our common school system here planted. We have seen a movement in cities like St. Paul, Minneapolis, Stillwater, and Winona, towards the local organization of a completed system of home schools, carrying instruction free to the University course, with a total enrollment of 13,500 scholars and 265 teachers, daily seated in buildings, all in the modern style of school architecture, and school furniture, costing to these cities the sum of

We have, in addition to these schools in the cities named, other home and fitting schools, to whom have been paid $400 each, under the law for the " Encouragement of Higher Education," passed in 1878, and amended in 1879, as follows: Anoka, Austin, Blue Earth City, Chatfield, Cannon Falls, Crookston, Duluth, Detroit, Eyota, Faribault, Garden City, Glencoe, Howard Lake, Hastings, Henderson, Easson, Litchfield, Lanesboro, Le Sueur, Lake City, Monticello, Moorhead, Mankato, Northfield, Owatonna, Osseo, Plainview, Red Wing, Rushford, Rochester, St. Cloud, St. Peter, Sauk Centre, Spring Valley, Wells, Waterville, Waseca, Wabasha, Wilmar, Winnebago City, Zumbrota, and Mantorville.

These forty-two State aid schools have paid in all for buildings and furniture the gross sum of $642,700; some of these buildings are superior in all that constitutes superiority in school architecture. The Rochester buildings and grounds cost the sum of $90,000. Several others, such as the Austin, Owatonna, Faribault, Hastings, Red Wing, Rushford, St. Cloud, and St. Peter schoolhouses, exceed in value the sum of $25,000; and others of these buildings are estimated at $6,000, $8,000, $10,000, and $15,000. In all they have an enrollment of scholars in attendance on classes graded up to the University course, numbering 13,000, under 301 teachers, at an annual salary amounting in all to $123,569, and having in their A, B, C, D classes 1,704 scholars, of whom 126 were prepared to enter the sub-freshman class of the State University in 1880, and the number entering these grades in the year 1879-80 was 934, of whom 400 were non-residents of the districts. And in all these forty-two home schools of the people, the fitting schools of the State University, one uniform course of study, articulating with some course in the University, was observed. Ah many other courses as the local boards desired were also carried on in these schools. This, in short, is a part of what we have done.